A technique of acquiring a print image and displaying it on the screen before printing has been proposed.
Conceivable examples of this technique are a method in which a computer (information processing apparatus) connected to a printer (to be also referred to as a “printing apparatus” hereinafter) analyzes a print command sent to the printer and maps an image for each of C, M, Y, and K planes to generate a print image, and a method in which a host computer that causes a printer to print transmits a print command to the printer, receives a print image created within the printer, and displays an image on the basis of the received print image.
In a network environment, conceivable examples are a method in which a so-called printer server in which a locally connected printer provides a printer function in the network environment analyzes a print command sent to the printer and maps an image for each of C, M, Y, and K planes to synthesize print images, and a method in which a print command is transmitted to a printer from a printer server via a network or from a host computer which requests the printer to print, and then the host computer receives via the network a print image created within the printer and displays an image on the basis of the received print image.
In a print system using a computer in which Microsoft Windows® is installed as an OS (Operating System), print data generated by an application program or the like is stored in an OS standard spool file, and print data stored in the spool file cannot be freely accessed. In the print system, the user interface driver of a printer driver activates a so-called previewer for displaying a print image on the computer in synchronism with the start of printing by an application program. The activated previewer waits until print data is actually printed. In the print system, the printer driver which creates a print image and the previewer which displays a print image cooperate with each other in actually printing print data, thus realizing the preview function. Such preview function is disclosed in U.S. patent Ser. No. 09/595,885 (filed on Jun. 20, 2000) and Japanese Patent Laid Open No. 2001-67347 (laid open to public on Mar. 16, 2001) by the assignee of the present application.
However, the above technique suffers the following problems which should be solved.
That is, in the method in which the host computer analyzes a print command sent to the printer and generates a print image, very accurate print image data can be obtained. However, the image data size increases in proportion to the printer resolution, requiring a large-capacity memory area.
In the method in which the host computer acquires a print image created by the printer from a print command, very accurate print image data can be obtained. However, the image data size increases in proportion to the printer resolution, requiring a large-capacity memory area.
In the print system using a computer in which Microsoft Windows® is installed as an OS (Operating System), the user interface driver of a printer driver activates a previewer for displaying a print image in synchronism with the start of printing by an application program. This method is compatible with the OS, but if a plurality of application programs print, a plurality of previewers are activated in accordance with the respective print operations.
In this OS, no application program is involved in re-printing in a print unit (to be referred to as a “print job” hereinafter) stored in a spool file. The printer driver cannot therefore activate any previewer.
In this OS, when it is so programmed as not to create any print data by an application program running on the OS, the printer driver activates the previewer in synchronism with the start of printing by the application program, but the application program does not create any print image. In this case, the previewer merely consumes the memory capacity (memory area) of the computer in execution, and no accurate print image can be displayed, giving the user a sense of incongruence.